Egypt: "A Real Uprising Against The Muslim Brotherhood"

“Red Card Friday” Protests Draw Hundreds Of Thousands Across Egypt

The opposition to Morsi has sustained its momentum and spread deeper into Egypt with perhaps hundreds of thousands protesting in cities and towns across the country.  

The picture that Mubarak and now the Muslim Brotherhood try to paint of political opposition is that it only exists to any extent in Cairo. “Tahrir is not Egypt” is a slogan that has been used many times since the January 25 revolution in 2011.

And it is true that the Muslim Brotherhood has historically been very strong in many provincial and rural centres of Egypt.

But that support may be in decline if the spread of protests is any indication.

Not only are there major demonstrations in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and the militant union town of Mahalla where the movement that led to Mubarak’s overthrow began in 2008. Today there were also demonstrations of hundreds and of thousands in smaller centres.

There were, for instance, demonstrations in villages in the province of Beheira, historically a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold. In Sharqiya, President Morsi’s hometown there were major clashes between oppositionists and MB supporters near his family home.

In Damietta farmers burned images of Morsi. The farmer syndicate leader walked out of the Constituent Assembly after they failed to include the rights of farmers. There have also been protests at the Morsi’s failure to pass a law forgiving debts for Egypt’s poverty stricken farmers.

As Egyptian socialist journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy tweeted: “Egypt is witnessing a real uprising against the Brotherhood.”